A court in Chad sentenced exiled former Chadian president Hissene Habre and leaders of an eastern rebellion to death in absentia at a mass trial on Friday.
Human rights groups and victims associations accuse Habre of instigating widespread political killings and torture during his eight-year rule in Chad, an oil producing country in central Africa.
Court Clerk Enoch Ngartebaye told reporters the Hissene Habre named in a court ruling was indeed the former president, who has lived in exile in Senegal since the current Chadian President, Idriss Deby, overthrew him in 1990.
Dozens of people accused of crimes against state security were put on trial in absentia on Tuesday, but they had no legal defense in the three-day hearing.
Habre’s lawyer in Senegal, El Hadj Diouf, said he had not heard anything official about the trial in Chad.
“This is a manipulation ... I’m not taking this seriously,” said Diouf, who is preparing Habre’s defense for a trial to be held in Senegal on the instruction of the African Union.
Earlier this year, Senegal’s parliament amended the nation’s constitution to allow national courts to try crimes against humanity and war crimes, opening the way for the eventual trial of Habre. No date has been set for the trial, and many believe it could still be years away.
Habre also has been indicted by a Belgian court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity under a law that allows the European country to prosecute such crimes wherever they are committed. But the African Union wants him to be tried in Senegal.
One rebel leader sentenced to death said he didn’t even know he had been on trial.
“I’ve heard nothing about this ... it is they who should be put on trial,” Timane Erdimi, leader of the rebel Rally of Forces for Change, told reporters by satellite phone.
“They issued an international arrest warrant in 2007, but I’ve heard nothing since,” said Erdimi, who said he was near Guereda, a Chadian town close to the border with Sudan’s Darfur.
Court president Judge Ngarhondo Dgide pronounced death sentences against 12 men including Habre, Nouri and Erdimi.
The court did not issue arrest warrants for those sentenced in absentia. Ngartebaye declined to comment on whether Chad would seek Habre’s extradition from Senegal.
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